Guest: 

• Melanie Mitchell, Resident Professor, Santa Fe Institute

Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo

Producer: Katherine Moncure

Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

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More info:

• Tutorial: Fundamentals of Machine Learning
• Lecture: Artificial Intelligence
• SFI programs: Education
• Competition: ARC Prize

Books: 

• Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter
• Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by Melanie Mitchell
• Complexity: A Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell

Talks: 

• The Future of Artificial Intelligence by Melanie Mitchell
• Introduction: AI and the Barrier of Meaning 2 by Melanie Mitchell
• Conceptual Abstraction and Analogy in Natural and Artificial Intelligence by Melanie Mitchell

Papers & Articles:

• “The metaphors of artificial intelligence,” in Science (November 14, 2024), doi: 10.1126/science.adt6140
• “Using counterfactual tasks to evaluate the generality of analogical reasoning in Large Language Models,” in arXiv (February 14, 2024), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2402.08955
• “Comparing humans, GPT-4, and GPT-4V on abstraction and reasoning tasks, ” (Proceedings of the LLM-CP Workshop, AAAI 2024), arXiv (December 11, 2023), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2311.09247
• “The debate over understanding in AI’s large language models,” in PNAS (March 21, 2023), doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2215907120
• “The ConceptARC benchmark: evaluating understanding and generalization in the ARC domain,” in Transactions on Machine Learning Research (August 2023), arXiv (May 11, 2023), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2305.07141

Guests: 

• Erica Cartmill, Professor, Anthropology and Cognitive Science, Indiana University Bloomington
• Ellie Pavlick, Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Linguistics, Brown University

Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Melanie Mitchell

Producer: Katherine Moncure

Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

Follow us on:
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More info:

• Tutorial: Fundamentals of Machine Learning
• Lecture: Artificial Intelligence
• SFI programs: Education
• Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute

Books: 

• Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by Melanie Mitchell

Talks: 

• How do we know what an animal understands by Erica Cartmill
• The Future of Artificial Intelligence by Melanie Mitchell

Papers & Articles:

• “Just kidding: the evolutionary roots of playful teasing,” in Biology Letters (September 23, 2020), doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0370
• “Overcoming bias in the comparison of human language and animal communication,” in PNAS (November 13, 2023), doi.org/10.1073/pnas.22187991
• “Using the senses in animal communication,” by Erica Cartmill, in A New Companion to Linguistic Anthropology, Chapter 20, Wiley Online Library (March 21, 2023)
• “Symbols and grounding in large language models,” in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A (June 5, 2023), doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2022.0041
• “Emergence of abstract state representations in embodied sequence modeling,” in arXiv (November 7, 2023), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2311.02171
• “How do we know how smart AI systems are,” in Science (July 13, 2023), doi: 10.1126/science.adj59

Guests: 

• Linda Smith, Distinguished Professor and Chancellor's Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington
• Michael Frank, Benjamin Scott Crocker Professor of Human Biology, Department of Psychology, Stanford University

Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Melanie Mitchell

Producer: Katherine Moncure

Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

Follow us on:
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More info:

• Tutorial: Fundamentals of Machine Learning
• Lecture: Artificial Intelligence
• SFI programs: Education

Books: 

• Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by Melanie Mitchell

Talks: 

• Why "Self-Generated Learning” May Be More Radical and Consequential Than First Appears by Linda Smith
• Children’s Early Language Learning: An Inspiration for Social AI, by Michael Frank at Stanford HAI
• The Future of Artificial Intelligence by Melanie Mitchell

Papers & Articles:

• “Curriculum Learning With Infant Egocentric Videos,” in NeurIPS 2023 (September 21)
• “The Infant’s Visual World The Everyday Statistics for Visual Learning,” by Swapnaa Jayaraman and Linda B. Smith, in The Cambridge Handbook of Infant Development: Brain, Behavior, and Cultural Context, Chapter 20, Cambridge University Press (September 26, 2020)
• “Can lessons from infants solve the problems of data-greedy AI?” in Nature (March 18, 2024), doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00713-5
• “Episodes of experience and generative intelligence,” in Trends in Cognitive Sciences (October 19, 2022), doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2022.09.012
• “Baby steps in evaluating the capacities of large language models,” in Nature Reviews Psychology (June 27, 2023), doi.org/10.1038/s44159-023-00211-x
• “Auxiliary task demands mask the capabilities of smaller language models,” in COLM (July 10, 2024)
• “Learning the Meanings of Function Words From Grounded Language Using a Visual Question Answering Model,” in Cognitive Science (First published: 14 May 2024), doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13448

Guests: 

• Tomer Ullman, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Harvard University
• Murray Shanahan, Professor of Cognitive Robotics, Department of Computing, Imperial College London; Principal Research Scientist, Google DeepMind

Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Melanie Mitchell

Producer: Katherine Moncure

Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

Follow us on:
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More info:

• Tutorial: Fundamentals of Machine Learning
• Lecture: Artificial Intelligence
• SFI programs: Education

Books: 

• Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by Melanie Mitchell
• The Technological Singularity by Murray Shanahan
• Embodiment and the inner life: Cognition and Consciousness in the Space of Possible Minds by Murray Shanahan
• Solving the Frame Problem by Murray Shanahan
• Search, Inference and Dependencies in Artificial Intelligence by Murray Shanahan and Richard Southwick

Talks: 

• The Future of Artificial Intelligence by Melanie Mitchell
• Artificial intelligence: A brief introduction to AI by Murray Shanahan

Papers & Articles:

• “A Conversation With Bing’s Chatbot Left Me Deeply Unsettled,” in New York Times (Feb 16, 2023)
• “Bayesian Models of Conceptual Development: Learning as Building Models of the World,” in Annual Review of Developmental Psychology Volume 2 (Oct 26, 2020), doi.org/10.1146/annurev-devpsych-121318-084833
• “Comparing the Evaluation and Production of Loophole Behavior in Humans and Large Language Models,” in Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics (December 2023), doi.org/10.18653/v1/2023.findings-emnlp.264
• “Role play with large language models,” in Nature (Nov 8, 2023), doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06647-8
• “Large Language Models Fail on Trivial Alterations to Theory-of-Mind Tasks,” arXiv (v5, March 14, 2023), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2302.08399
• “Talking about Large Language Models,” in Communications of the ACM (Feb 12, 2024), 
• “Simulacra as Conscious Exotica,” in arXiv (v2, July 11, 2024), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2402.12422

Guests: 

• Evelina Fedorenko, Associate Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Investigator, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT
• Steve Piantadosi, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, and Head of Computation and Language Lab, UC Berkeley
• Gary Lupyan, Professor of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Melanie Mitchell

Producer: Katherine Moncure

Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

Follow us on:
Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn  • Bluesky

More info:

• Tutorial: Fundamentals of Machine Learning
• Lecture: Artificial Intelligence
• SFI programs: Education

Books: 

• Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by Melanie Mitchell
• Developing Object Concepts in Infancy: An Associative Learning Perspective by Rakison, D.H., and G. Lupyan
• Language and Mind by Noam Chomsky
• On Language by Noam Chomsky

Talks: 

• The Future of Artificial Intelligence by Melanie Mitchell
• The language system in the human brain: Parallels & Differences with LLMs by Evelina Federenko
   

Papers & Articles:

• “Dissociating language and thought in large language models,” in Trends in Cognitive Science (March 19, 2024), doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2024.01.011
• “The language network as a natural kind within the broader landscape of the human brain,” in Nature Reviews Neuroscience (April 12, 2024), doi.org/10.1038/s41583-024-00802-4
• “Visual grounding helps learn word meanings in low-data regimes,” in arXiv (v2 revised on 25 March 2024), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2310.13257
• “No evidence of theory of mind reasoning in the human language network,” in Cerebral Cortex (December 28, 2022), doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhac505
• “Chapter 1: Modern language models refute Chomsky’s approach to language,” by Steve T. Piantadosi (v7, November 2023), lingbuzz/007180
• “Uniquely human intelligence arose from expanded information capacity,” in Nature Reviews Psychology (April 2, 2024), doi.org/10.1038/s44159-024-00283-3
• “Understanding the allure and pitfalls of Chomsky's acience,” Review by Gary Lupyan, in The American Journal of Psychology (Spring 2018), doi.org/10.5406/amerjpsyc.131.1.0112
• “Language is more abstract than you think, or, why aren’t languages more iconic?” in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (June 18, 2018), 
• Published:18 June 2018, doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0137
• “Does vocabulary help structure the mind?” in Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology: Human Communication: Origins, Mechanisms, and Functions (February 27, 2021), doi.org/10.1002/9781119684527.ch6
• “Use of superordinate labels yields more robust and human-like visual representations in convolutional neural networks,” in Journal of Vision (December 2021), doi.org/10.1167/jov.21.13.13
• “Appeals to ‘Theory of Mind’ no longer explain much in language evolution,” by Justin Sulik and Gary Lupyan
• “Effects of language on visual perception,” in Trends in Cognitive Sciences (October 1, 2020), doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2020.08.005
• “Is language-of-thought the best game in the town we live?” in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (September 28, 2023), doi:10.1017/S0140525X23001814
• “Can we distinguish machine learning from human learning?” in arXiv (October 8, 2019), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1910.03466

Guests: 

• Alison Gopnik, SFI External Faculty; Professor of Psychology and Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at University of California, Berkeley; Member of Berkeley AI Research Group
• John Krakauer, SFI External Faculty; John C. Malone Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience, and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Johns Hopkins University

Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Melanie Mitchell

Producer: Katherine Moncure

Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

Podcast logo by Nicholas Graham

Follow us on:
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More info:

Complexity Explorer: 

Tutorial: Fundamentals of Machine Learning

Lecture: Artificial Intelligence

SFI programs: Education

Books: 

• Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by Melanie Mitchell
• Words, Thoughts and Theories by Alison Gopnik and Andrew N. Meltzoff
• The Scientist in the Crib: Minds, Brains, and How Children Learn by Alison Gopnik, Andrew N. Meltzoff, and Patricia K. Kuhl
• The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life by Alison Gopnik
• The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children by Alison Gopnik

Talks: 

• The Future of Artificial Intelligence by Melanie Mitchell
• Imitation Versus Innovation: What Children Can Do That Large Langauge Models’ Can’t by Alison Gopnik
• The Minds of Children by Alison Gopnik
• What Understanding Adds to Cambrian Intelligence: A Taxonomy by John Krakauer

Papers & Articles:

• “Why you can’t make a computer that feels pain,” by Daniel C. Dennett
• “Transmission versus truth, imitation versus innovation: What children can do that Large Language and Language-and-Vision models cannot (yet),” in Perspectives on Psychological Science  (October 26, 2023), doi.org/10.1177/17456916231201401
• “Empowerment as Causal Learning, Causal Learning as Empowerment: A bridge between Bayesian causal hypothesis testing and reinforcement learning,” by Alison Gopnik
• “What can AI Learn from Human Exploration? Intrinsically-Motivated Humans and Agents in Open-World Exploration” by Yuqing Du et al, for Workshop: Agent Learning in Open-Endedness Workshop, NeurIPS 2024 conference
• “Two views on the cognitive brain,” by David L. Barack & John W. Krakauer, Perspectives in Nature Reviews Neuroscience Vol 22 (April 15, 2021)
• “The intelligent reflex,” by John W. Krakauer, Philosophical Psychology (May 23, 2019), doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2019.1607281
• “Representation in Cognitive Science by Nicholas Shea: But Is It Thinking? The Philosophy of Representation Meets Systems Neuroscience” by John W. Krakauer

Guests: 

• Heather Graham, Research Associate at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Chris Kempes

Producer: Katherine Moncure

Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

Additional sound credits: Digifish music; “Determination of Azimuth,” written by Heather Graham, staged at the Baltimore Rock Opera Society

Follow us on:
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More info:

Apply for the 2024 Complexity Global School at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia

SFI programs: Education

• Complexity Explorer:  Origins of Life: Introduction| Chris Kempes (Link to full playlist)
• Enroll for the course: Origins of Life

Videos:

• Asteroids, Agnostic Biosignatures, & Experimental Rock Opera with Dr. Heather Graham
• Heather Graham on Katherine Johnson

Papers & Articles:

• “Investigating the impact of x‐ray computed tomography imaging on soluble organic matter in the Murchison meteorite: Implications for Bennu sample analyses” in Meteoritics & Planetary Science (December 2023), doi.org/10.1111/maps.14111
• “The Vacant Niche Revisited: Using Negative Results to Refine the Limits of Habitability,” in bioRxiv (Nov 8, 2023), doi.org/10.1101/2023.11.06.565904
• “Observations of Elemental Composition of Enceladus Consistent with Generalized Models of Theoretical Ecosystems,” in bioRxiv (Oct 29, 2023), doi.org/10.1101/2023.10.29.564608
• “Planetary Subsurface Science and Exploration: An Integrated Consortium to Understand Subsurface Sources of Energy and the Unique Energetics of Subsurface Life,” in Mars Extant Life: What’s Next? (Nov 2019), hou.usra.edu/meetings/lifeonmars2019/pdf/5047.pdf
• “Detecting life on Earth and the limits of analogy,” in Planetary Astrobiology (June 16, 2020)
• “Identifying molecules as biosignatures with assembly theory and mass spectrometry,” in chemRxiv (Nov 16, 202), chemrxiv.org/engage/api-gateway/chemrxiv/assets/orp/resource/item/60c751e59abda27c1af8dce4/original/identifying-molecules-as-biosignatures-with-assembly-theory-and-mass-spectrometry.pdf
• “The Grayness of the Origin of Life,” in Life (May 29, 2021) doi.org/10.3390/life11060498
• “Generalized stoichiometry and biogeochemistry for astrobiological applications,” in Bulletin of Mathematical Biology (July 2021), link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11538-021-00877-5

Guests: 

• David Krakauer, President and William H. Miller Professor of Complex Systems at the Santa Fe Institute
• Sean Carroll, External Professor and Fractal Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute, Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University

Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Chris Kempes

Producer: Katherine Moncure

Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

Additional sound credits: Digifishmusic, Trundlefly, Greenvwbeetle, Miksmusic, Brewlabboffin

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More info:

SFI programs: Education

Complexity Explorer: 

• Origins of Life: The Multiple Origins of Life - Part 1 | David Krakauer
• Origins of Life: The Multiple Origins of Life - Part 2 | David Krakauer
• Origins of Life: The Multiple Origins of Life - Part 3 | David Krakauer
• Origins of Life: The Multiple Origins of Life - Part 4 | David Krakauer
• Complexity Explorer Lecture: David Krakauer • What is Complexity?

Books: 

• Disputed Inheritance: The Battle over Mendel and the Future of Biology by Gregory Radick
• Quanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe by Sean Carroll
• Worlds Hidden in Plain Sight: The Evolving Idea of Complexity at the Santa Fe Institute, 1984-2019 Edited by David Krakauer

Talks: 

• The Many Worlds of Quantum Mechanics Sean Carroll

Papers & Articles:

• “The Multiple Paths to Multiple Life,” in Journal of Molecular Evolution (July 12, 2021), doi.org/10.1007/s00239-021-10016-2

Guests: 

• Melanie Moses, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, Professor of Computer Science and Associate Professor of Biology at University of New Mexico
• Hyejin Youn, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, Associate Professor at Institute of Northwestern University

Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Chris Kempes

Producer: Katherine Moncure

Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

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More info:

SFI programs: Education

Complexity Explorer: 

Fractals and Scaling 

Fractals and Scaling: Toward a Theory of Urban Scaling

Introduction to Complexity: Ant Foraging and Task Allocation

• Books: 
• Scale by Geoffrey West
• Complexity: a Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell

Talks: 

• Toward a Scientific Theory of Cities by Hyejin Youn

Papers & Articles:

• “Synergy in ant foraging strategies: memory and communication alone and in combination,” in GECCO’13: Proceedings of the 15th annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation (July 6, 2013), doi.org/10.1145/2463372.2463389
• “In vivo, in silico, in machina: Ants and Robots balance memory and communication to collectively exploit information,” in Proceedings of the European Conference on Complex Systems 2012
• “What makes individual I’s a Collective We; coordination mechanisms & costs” in arXiv (November 20, 2023), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2306.02113
• “How does innovation push its boundaries?” in 43 Visions for Complexity, Exploring Complexity: Volume 3 (January 2017), doi.org/10.1142/9789813206854_0043

Guests: 

• Brian Enquist, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at University of Arizona
• Pablo Marquet, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, Professor at Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Chris Kempes

Producer: Katherine Moncure

Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

Other music: Craig Smith, Justkiddink, MaestroALF, ComputerHotline, James Ro Davidson, SoundEnsemble, Trundlefly, Geoff Bremner, Newagesgroup, Oddmonoliths, Thepla

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More info:

SFI programs: Education

Complexity Explorer: Origins of Life: Astrobiology & General Theories for Life - Scaling with Pablo Marquet

Books: 

• Scale by Geoffrey West
• Scaling Biodiversity (Ecological Reviews) edited by David Storch, Pablo Marquet , James Brown 
• How Landscapes Change: Human Disturbance and Ecosystem Fragmentation in the Americas (Ecological Studies Book 162) edited by Gay A. Bradshaw and Pablo A. Marquet 

Talks: 

• Better Forecasting our Ecological Future: Taming Big Data with Big Theory, Brian Enquist

Papers & Articles:

• “More than 17,000 tree species are at risk from rapid global change,” in Nature Communications (January 2, 2024), doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-44321-9
• “Metastatic cells exploit their stoichiometric niche in the network of cancer ecosystems,” in Science Advances (December 13, 2023), doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adi79
• “Environmental heterogeneity as a driver of terrestrial biodiversity on a global scale” in PPG: Earth and Environment (August 11, 2023), doi.org/10.1177/03091333231189045
• “The number of tree species on Earth,” PNAS (Jan 31, 2022), doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2115329119
• “Globally important plant functional traits for coping with climate change,” in Frontiers of Biogeography (October 2, 2021), doi.org/10.21425/F5FBG53774
• “Scaling from Traits to Ecosystems: Developing a General Trait Driver Theory via Integrating Trait-Based and Metabolic Scaling Theories,” Advances in Ecological 
• Research (May 4, 2015),  doi.org/10.1016/bs.aecr.2015.02.001
• “A general quantitative theory of forest structure and dynamics,” PNAS (April 28, 2009), doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0812294106